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Drat... no need to activate a hit squad. No "DoS attack" on RantPro. Just a problem with updating DNS nameservers. here was me thinking that the genocidal Israel-Firsters and their Apocalypse-Soon "Left Behind" buttwads had gotten arc-y about my opposition to their pogrom against the Palestinians... and it was nothing of the sort.
Bugger... I was hoping to be upgraded to "Dissident" this week (but that would have put me in the same sewage-hole as that shit-head Natan Sharansky... so I would rather not be a dissident, thanks).
Federal Reserve Open Market Operations
The Fed's Open Market Operations desk performed 1 repurchase operation.
- a $4.25billion, 6-day repurchase entirely in T-backed collateral.
No repo? What is Greenstain thinking? How does he expect the market to get an intraday traction without providing some rocket fuel?
Major US Indices
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 84.98 points (0.81%), closing out the day at 10461.34 points. The index hit an intraday high of 10553.56 ten minutes after the open, and slid for the entire session, closing within a point of the session low (10460.46).
Within the blue-chip index, just 2 stocks rose, the biggest gainers being Alcoa (AA, +0.44% to $31.61) and Home Depot (HD, +0.21% to $37.48), which accounted for 2 Dow points between them. Losers in the Dow numbered 28 and were led by General Motors (GM, -3.37% to $29.50) and Du Pont (DD, -1.63% to $50.70), with these two stocks contributing -14 Dow points worth of downward pressure on the index. Volume traded was tilted in favour of the losers by281.4m shares to 14.9m.
The broader S&P500 declined 9.94 points (0.83%), to end the session at 1181.2. Within the index, gainers numbered 66, while 425 S&P500 stocks fell for the day. Volume was tilted 4.7:1 in favour of the losers - jsut over 1.2billion shares changed hands in declining S&P500 stocks, while just 271.6 million were traded in advancers.
Over at Times Square, the Nasdaq Composite slid 19.44 points (0.96%), to close at 1999.35, while larger-cap technology issues fared better with the Nasdaq100 losing 14.11 points (0.94%), to end at 1485.6 points. Within the tech benchmark, gainers numbered 25, while 73 Nasdaq100 stocks fell for the day. Volume was tilted almost 4:1 in favour of the losers - by 529m in losers to 135.9m in gainers.
NYSE Volume was chunky, with 1.67 billion shares changing hands, while Nasdaq Volume was about average, with 1.53 billion shares being shifted from one online brokerage account to another (and back again, in all likelihood).
| Major Market Statistics | |||
| Index | Close | Gain(Loss) | % |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average | 10461.34 | -84.98 | -0.81% |
| S&P500 | 1181.2 | -9.94 | -0.83% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 1999.35 | -19.44 | -0.96% |
| Nasdaq100 | 1485.6 | -14.11 | -0.94% |
| NYSE Volume | 1.67bn | - | - |
| Nasdaq Volume | 1.53bn | - | - |
Bellwethers
My 9-stock "bellwethers" group fell by an average of 0.87%; Fannie Mae bucked the downtrend (that's as good as a continuation of the recent "ignore journalists and listen to GT" bounce... if you keep your head while evey other bellwether is losing 1% of their's you end up the tallest in the room... lol).
That does not mean I am remotely bullish about FNM's longer-term prospects; it will be quite soone that I will be advocating some luscious short-dated FNM puts (only in the e-mail lists though... and you can't register for those until my domain nameservers are updated).
- General Electric (GE) -$0.04 (0.11%) to $35.74;
- Citigroup (C) -$0.06 (0.13%) to $45.40;
- Wal Mart (WMT) -$0.33 (0.67%) to $48.57;
- I.B.M. (IBM) -$0.84 (0.95%) to $87.60;
- Intel (INTC) -$0.12 (0.51%) to $23.29;
- Cisco Systems (CSCO) -$0.25 (1.38%) to $17.90;
- eBay (EBAY) -$0.98 (2.71%) to $35.16;
- Fannie Mae (FNM) unchanged at $55.15; and
- Freddie Mac (FRE) -$0.84 (1.32%) to $62.93.
Market Breadth & Internals
NYSE declining Issues beat out advancers by 2303 to 916, for a single-day A/D reading of -1387; and Nasdaq losers exceeded gainers by 2078 to 949. The 10-day moving average of the A/D line fell to 136.4 on the NYSE, while the 10dma of the Nasdaq A/D fell to -175.1.
On the NYSE declining volume was greater than volume in advancing issues by 1267.1 to 374.5 million shares; On the Nasdaq declining volume exceeded volume in advancing issues by 1109.5 to 381.6 million shares.
62 NYSE-listed stocks rose to new 52-week highs, and 40 posted fresh 52-week lows, while on the Nasdaq there were 36 stocks that hit new 52-week highs, and 71 which fell to fresh 52-week lows.
| Market Breadth Statistics | ||
| NYSE | Nasdaq | |
| Advancers | 916 | 949 |
| Decliners | 2303 | 2078 |
| Advancing Volume (m) | 374.47 | 381.63 |
| Declining Volume (m) | 1267.14 | 1109.53 |
| New Highs | 62 | 36 |
| New Lows | 40 | 71 |
| Market Sentiment Statistics | |||
| Index | Close | Gain(Loss) | % |
| CBOE Volatility Index | 12.62 | 0.3 | 2.44% |
| CBOE Nasdaq Volatility Index | 16.96 | 0.32 | 1.92% |
| Equity Put-Call Ratio | 0.78 | 0.2 | 34.48% |
| 10-day PCR | 0.71 | 0.02 | 2.49% |
| SPX-VIX Ratio | 93.6 | -3.09 | -3.19% |
Bond Market Analysis
Bonds rose at the long end, but fell in the belly. The yield on the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond shed a basis point to 4.775%. Ten-year yields are back towards 4.5% and the bond market is more or less in no-man's land.
| Treasury Yields | |||
| Index | Close | Gain(Loss) | % |
| UST 13wk (yld) | 2.712 | 0 | 0% |
| UST 2Y (yld) | 3.72 | 0.02 | 0.54% |
| UST 5Y (yld) | 4.153 | 0.033 | 0.8% |
| UST 10Y (yld) | 4.491 | 0.019 | 0.42% |
| UST 30Y (yld) | 4.775 | -0.01 | -0.21% |
The Banks Index dipped 0.71 points (0.73%), ending the day at 96.59; within the index,
- Comerica (CMA) -$0.88 (1.58%) to $54.77;
- US Bancorp (USB) -$0.44 (1.53%) to $28.38;
- State Street (STT) -$0.66 (1.52%) to $42.70;
- PNC Financial Services (PNC) -$0.75 (1.44%) to $51.20; and
- Mellon Financial (MEL) -$0.35 (1.23%) to $28.03.
The Broker-dealer Index declined 1.38 points (0.94%), at 144.67; the ticket clippers lined up as follows -
- Jeffries Group (JEF) -$0.84 (2.15%) to $38.16;
- Legg Mason (LM) -$1.29 (1.7%) to $74.81;
- Raymond James (RJF) -$0.39 (1.28%) to $30.04;
- E*Trade (ET) -$0.15 (1.26%) to $11.80; and
- Charles Schwab (SCH) -$0.12 (1.12%) to $10.59.
The Philadelphia SOX (Semiconductor) index declined 2.02 points (0.48%), ending the day at 416.95
- Marvell Tech Group (MRVL) -$1.31 (3.47%) to $36.39;
- National Semiconductors (NSM) -$0.50 (2.42%) to $20.15;
- Maxim Integrated (MXIM) -$0.51 (1.22%) to $41.35;
- KLA-Tencor (KLAC) -$0.46 (1.01%) to $44.93; and
- Linear Technology (LLTC) -$0.26 (0.66%) to $38.95.
Gold & Silver Markets
Gold rose $0.40 (0.09%) to close at $426.90 per ounce. Now that's an interesting outcome; the USDX fell a little over half a percent but Gold couldn't get its groove on. I smell some stale nuffies, and next week might just be an ugly one for gold bulls. We will know soon (as soon as my nameservers are updated I will be able to send out e-mails... that will be done by Monday - I will not give any more "heads up" non-advice here: from now on it's only for the registered mail-list folks).
Gold Bugs Index dipped 1.1 points (0.55%), closing at 198.99
- Eldorado Gold (EGO) -$0.11 (3.83%) to $2.76;
- Randgold Resources (GOLD) -$0.31 (2.46%) to $12.30;
- Golden Star (GSS) -$0.07 (2.34%) to $2.92;
- Kinross Gold (KGC) -$0.08 (1.31%) to $6.02; and
- Freeport McMoran (FCX) -$0.49 (1.26%) to $38.44.
Silver rose $0.09 (1.27%) to close at $7.16 per ounce. The Gold and Silver Index (XAU) lost 0.33 points (0.35%), to end the session at 92.89 points.
- Kinross Gold (KGC) -$0.08 (1.31%) to $6.02;
- Durban Rooderpoert Deep (DROOY) -$0.01 (1.31%) to $0.83;
- Freeport McMoran (FCX) -$0.49 (1.26%) to $38.44; and
- Barrick Gold (ABX) -$0.17 (0.71%) to $23.89.
| Precious Metals and Indices | |||
| Index | Close | Gain(Loss) | % |
| Gold | 426.90 | 0.40 | 0.09% |
| Silver | 7.16 | 0.09 | 1.27% |
| PHLX Gold and Silver Index | 92.89 | -0.33 | -0.35% |
| AMEX Gold BUGS Index | 198.99 | -1.1 | -0.55% |
Oil Market
Now this is starting to get interessant, as our Froggie friends might observe.
Oil lost ground yet again, shedding $0.84 per barrel to close at $53.32 per barrel at its session low, crude dropped to $52.70.
The short leg of the option strangle we've been following closed at $258 for a one-leg gain of 22.3% for the session, while the long leg (the $56 call) dropped again to $30. That makes the total value of the strangle $288, up 7% for the session and 11.6% since inception (two sessions ago). Those who didn't convert the short futures (which was advocated literally five minutes after the recent contract high in crude), are now sitting on almost $5k per contract in profits (on a required margin outlay of $4050) since Monday.
The Heating Oil setup is even more better (as I said it was at the time). HO dropped yet again last night, hit a low of 1.4750 - over 2000 ticks below the advocated short futures entry at 1.6900 (which was also as near as dammit to the recent contract high). Those who rode the futures short were up $8400 in a week; those who exited futures and switched to the options strangle will be less happy, but were actually better risk-managers.
The heating strangle has outperformed the Crude strangle (as it ought to have). The $1.62 call is falling toward zero and closed at 17.1 ticks ($71.82), while the $1.61 put rose to 131.8 ticks (a one-session gain of 28% and a rise of 149% since inception, i.e., in two sessions). The aggregate value of the position has risen from $422.60 to $625.38 in two sessions... a gain of 48%.
The Oil and Gas Index (XOI) dipped 10.29 points (1.19%), ending the day at 852.59
- ChevronTexaco (CVX) -$1.27 (2.19%) to $56.69;
- Sunoco (SUN) -$2.26 (2.11%) to $104.88; and
- Exxon Mobil (XOM) -$0.84 (1.38%) to $60.01.
The Oil service stocks (OSX) Index slid 2.72 points (1.92%), at 138.7
- Global Industries (GLBL) -$0.47 (4.29%) to $10.48;
- Noble Corp (NE) -$1.63 (2.86%) to $55.42; and
- GlobalSantaFe (GSF) -$1.07 (2.81%) to $37.00.
| Energy Complex | |||
| Index | Close | Gain(Loss) | % |
| Reuters CRB | 304.32 | -1.96 | -0.64% |
| Crude Oil Light Sweet | 53.32 | -0.84 | -1.55% |
| Heating Oil | 1.4972 | -0.03 | -1.98% |
| Natural Gas | 7.242 | -0.14 | -1.87% |
| Unleaded Gas | 1.5366 | -0.04 | -2.28% |
| AMEX Oil Index | 852.59 | -10.29 | -1.19% |
| Oil Service Index | 138.7 | -2.72 | -1.92% |
Currency Markets
| USD Exchange Rates | |||
| Index | Close | Gain(Loss) | % |
| US Dollar Index | 84.4 | -0.44 | -0.52% |
| Euro | 1.2881 | 0.0025 | 0.19% |
| Yen | 108.16 | -0.46 | -0.42% |
| Sterling | 1.8852 | 0.0157 | 0.84% |
| Australian Dollar | 0.7707 | 0.0049 | 0.64% |
| Swiss Franc | 1.1983 | -0.0087 | -0.72% |
| Canadian Dollar | 0.8137 | -0.0044 | -0.54% |
